Celebrating Eid with religious fervour

As in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East on Tuesday, so Eid-ul-Fitr is being celebrated today in Pakistan with religious fervour, as also elsewhere in the world with reckonable Muslim population groups.
And notwithstanding the lurking threats of suicidal bombings from the mischievously devised misnomer of Islamic thrust of Jihad, the excitement began with the announcement of sighting of the Shawwal crescent moon yesterday, followed by preparations for rejoicings with hurried last round of the marketplaces to pick up or make do what had been left for Chand Raat or night of the crescent moon.
Lately, shrinking purchasing power due to high inflation notwithstanding, bazaars and supermarkets witnessed a relative upsurge in shopping activity. The same goes for the inhibiting fear of terrorist onslaught, which people appear to have learned to live with. Men and women, their families and children, all of them seemed to have suddenly awakened to the urgency of celebrating Eid with a sense of duty and tradition, after fulfilling the month-long obligation of fasting.
Women, young girls in particular, could be seen crowding stalls of traditional "henna" and bangles. Early this morning, after Fajr prayers and a hurried bath, male members of the families and children alike, dressed in new or cleanly washed clothes, would have hastened out to join congregations in the neighbourhood mosques or open field Eidgah in various locales for special Eid prayers.
All this while, the atmosphere all over the place would be resounding with blaring announcements or recitations, interlocked with shrieks from security vehicles and ambulances in view of the high alert against terrorist threats.
However, outside the mosques and Eidgahs were to be witnessed the usual scramble by various organisations, and individuals, for collection of Fitra or Zakat al-Fitr the Muslims are ordained to pay to the poor and needy before the Eid prayer, so as to enable the latter also to join others in celebrating the occasion.
As for the Eid prayer itself, short and orderly though, it happens to be, it was to be followed, as prescribed, with the Khutba by the Imam, often punctuated by a special dua, beseeching Divine forgiveness of the Ummah's sins of omission and commission during the year, before dispersal.
And then and there would begin the process of Eid greetings with emotional hugging, and gleeful handshakes and pronouncements of Eid Mubarak, an exercise that would last rather the whole day, back home, with family members, children, elders, friends and neighbours.
Further whether one likes it or not, for many the Eid celebrations would remain incomplete without a visit to graveyards to pray for the salvation of the departed souls. It is an altogether different scene there, with people looking out for the graves of their close relatives, amid many an unkempt grave, sprinkling water and laying wreaths and praying for their salvation.
As against all this, most of the others, after meeting friends and relatives, would go for attending parties, feasts, special melas and festivities in the parks (with picnics, fireworks, etc). Small wonder, ignoring the siren blowing vehicles, which have become part of daily routine, many bazaars, malls, and restaurants would be attracting large crowds with marked attendance of those starved of relaxation and serene mood.
Such are the ways in which, generally speaking, we continue to celebrate Eid with a marked, yet little realised religious fervour, which has become an anathema for those otherwise influenced by the dictums poured out of increasing number of seminaries, rather innocently funded by good-intentioned individuals, as well as by differently motivated foreign entities.
It is there, where the phenomenon, deceptively called 'Jihad' took its roots, mostly from the massive support of the United States in order to drive the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan also readily obliged under General Zia who would do anything to satisfy his inexplicable inner urge for Islamisation.
It was only in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union, to the satisfaction of the US, that the terror phenomenon's backlash emerged, to increasing detriment of Pakistan. While US had its own reasons to look elsewhere to safeguard its national security interests, Pakistan found itself steeped in variegated thrusts of terrorism.
With no respite from the agonising spell of abounding fears of terror, the US turned to Pakistan again, in the aftermath of 9/11, asking former president Pervez Musharraf, to join the US-led world community's war on international terror, primarily, focusing on Afghanistan, the latter unhesitatingly falling for it as a frontline state. What has all this led to needs hardly any repetition.
As for now, the newly elected democratic government, also, thanks to the US efforts in that direction, is grappling with it, in its own way in the larger interest of the nation, and prepared to face any threats. The religious fervour with which Eid is being celebrated today would testify to the people's sense of devotion to the spirit of heeding the Divine Command under all circumstances.